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In our emails, sent once or twice a week, you'll receive:
• alerts on new threats to Oregon's environment
• opportunities to join other Oregonians on urgent actions
• updates on the decisions that impact our environment
• resources to help you create a cleaner, greener future

Who's attacking solar?

Unfortunately, solar power’s rapid growth has alarmed some dirty energy companies. They keep putting up new roadblocks to solar -- so they can keep solar generating less than 3% of our power, even if it means more pollution and more global warming.

Here are just a few examples:

Charles and David Koch, owners of the oil conglomerate Koch Industries, and their allies have spent heavily to impose new taxes on homeowners who go solar – in effect, penalizing those who reduce their pollution and their carbon footprint.

The Edison Electric Institute, which represents electric utility companies, has teamed up with the American Legislative Exchange Council to dismantle state pro-solar laws in Kansas, North Carolina and Washington State, amid others.

Our report found all or nearly all of the states shared a set of smart policies in common, from strong clean energy standards to policies that let solar homeowners sell their extra power back to the utilities.

Community Solar

We need more and better pro-solar policies, not fewer. That’s why we’re urging the state legislature to pass a bill that would double the state’s commitment to renewable energy and create community solar, which allows individuals or businesses who cannot put solar panels on their own homes to buy panels in a community solar garden and receive all the same benefits as if they panels were installed on-site. Modeled after successful programs in other states, community solar has the potential to open the door for solar to a huge set of the population to whom it was previously unavailable.

Promoting local solar initiatives

Local communities in Oregon could be a model for solar growth across the state. We’re working in five cities (Lake Oswego, Milwaukie, Corvallis, Eugene, and Ashland) to convince local leaders to make solar a priority by setting goals for solar installation over the next five years, and passing policies to promote solar growth. Solar goals proposed by Environment Oregon represent a combined 245% increase in solar power in the cities over five years, or the equivalent of more than 3,000 residential solar rooftops. If Oregon increased installed solar capacity at the same rate, it would be the equivalent of 28,000 new solar rooftops statewide in the next five years. You can learn about what we’re proposing here!

Let's go big on solar

We think a combination of professional research and advocacy with community action can help America go big on solar. Why? Our national federation has done it before.

Environment California spearheaded the campaign for that state’s Million Solar Roofs Initiative. In Massachusetts, we helped convince the state to set a goal of enough solar to power 50,000 homes – and then persuaded the state to raise the goal when it hit the original milestone ahead of schedule. We’ve also won pro-solar policies in Colorado, New Mexico, Minnesota, Arizona, New Jersey and North Carolina.

But we have a long way to go to reach solar power’s true potential.

It’s time to go big on solar. If we take the right steps today, we can harness more power from the sun so we can finally leave dirty energy behind. The sky really is the limit.

Clean Energy Updates

America is in the midst of a clean energy revolution. Currently, wind and solar energy provide nearly 10 percent of our nation’s electricity and in 2018 America produced almost five times as much renewable electricity from the sun and the wind as in 2009. Renewables on the Rise documents the dramatic rise of clean energy over the past decade and looks toward a future that is 100 percent renewable.

Since 2009, Oregon has seen a 37-fold increase in the amount of electricity generated from the sun, and a 105% increase in wind power generation, according to a new report released today by Environment Oregon Research & Policy Center. The report also highlights advances in the use of energy storage and energy efficiency and ranks Oregon 10th among the states for the number of registered electric vehicles in 2018.

The United States now boasts more than two million solar panel installations, according to data released today by Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA). While it took decades to reach one million in 2016, the next million took just three years.